The Adventures of Cherry, Spencer, Xavier, Clementine & Niels Marcel: Tanzania Day 4, Part 2: Enaboishu Bike Shop

We are camped between two villages named Mikocheni: Ndogo (Little) and Kubwa (Big). After visiting the fishermen at work in the morning, we biked to Mikocheni Kubwa.

Traditional Maasai Mud Huts

As we biked through town, a number of school children followed us. Two managed to snag a ride with our local guide, Emma. The boy below on the left ran alongside us the whole rest of the way.

Our destination for the afternoon was the Enaboishu Duka la Baiskeli (Bike Shop). Enaboishu is a cooperative of Maasai women who run several business initiatives to help the community, including savings & micro-lending, solar, water sales and since 2012, bike rentals. When they first partnered with Globalbike, the women met clients under a tree and kept bikes in individual homes, which they had to go retrieve when customers came.

The tree where it all began.

Clementine in front of an Enaboishu member's house near the tree.

However bucolic it may have been, the "meet me under a tree" arrangement was less than ideal, and with support from Globalbike and a Rotary club in northern Indiana, a proper building was constructed for the bike shop as demand grew. Currently, it houses storage for bikes and spare parts as well as space for maintenance and recordkeeping. There is also a large covered porch where we met with the Enaboishu members.

We had many introductions as well as an explanation of their operations and opportunities to ask questions and learn more about how both the cooperative and the bike shop operate, as well as their impact on the community.

The "mama Maasai" of the group (in red, right) who greeted us wearing her traditional ceremonial collar.

Vincent Kalonga, local buisnessman (standing, in purple t-shirt) greeting Enaboishu members. Vincent helped connect Globalbike within the community originally and continues to be a supporter.

Left: Magdalena Emmanuel, Chairwoman for Enaboishu who also helps run the bike shop. Center: Tuja Willy, Globalbike Program Coordinator who facilitated the visit and provided Swahili-English interpretation. Right: The "mama Maasai", whose name I didn't catch, giving an overview of Enaboishu's activities.

Ten of the eleven female mechanics who have been trained were present for the visit. Two of them work at the shop at any given time. From the Right of Tuja Willy: Magdalena (hidden behind Tuja), Sara Palo, Vero (who operates a satellite branch we'll visit another day), Emma Palo, Esther Jeremiah, Safina Dasudi, Juma (mechanic trainer), [in yellow - didn't catch name], Martha (leader of bike shop), Safina Simon (secretary for Enaboishu), Vernoica Mgeni (accountant and one of the best mechanics).

While Globalbike and Enaboishu work to empower women, and the cooperatives are composed of and run by women, there are men working to support them as well, including Juma - a bike mechanic from Arusha who trained all the women mechanics to work in the bike shop. There were many smiles as they saw each other again and the women invited him to join them. Juma has also trained the mechanics working for the other cooperative that we will be visiting tomorrow, including a woman, Luice Stefano, who has been trained to become the first female mechanic trainer. Local cultures remain quite patriarchal and women working in roles such as bike mechanics would be exceptionally rare. So having this many women trained to do this work is a big deal - both for them, their families and the community.

Women tend to marry young and most have several children, however the mechanics who spoke also shared their pride at having learned these skills, the enjoyment they found in doing the work and satisfaction in being able to support their families with income from the shop.

We also heard from three long-time customers of the bike shop, including Ziko, a very charismatic guy who has rented a bike monthly since the shop opened. Previously, he had used a motorbike (pikipiki) to get around, but was concerned that he wasn't getting enough exercise, so switched to a bicycle. Doing so has also enabled him to save money while feeling healthier. He uses his bike to fetch water as well as go to his farm to work.

Ziko (dressed in White) with his beaming smile, one of the shop's most loyal customers.

We also heard from Kamalani, a man who recounted how renting a bike simplifies his household work, including fetching water, running other errands and reaching places where he needs to go. Another customer, Elfrieda, spoke about how renting a bike weekly allows her to cut in half what was a two-hour commute each way to her farm by foot. She also saves time fetching water for herself, and makes money by delivering water to others in the village (saving them the time and effort of walking to get it).

After our discussion on the porch, we went to tour inside the shop. It was constructed using local materials and is divided into three spaces, two of which housed bikes & spare parts, with the customer service area in the middle.

Tuja and two of the mechanics told us more about the shop's operations, and how Globalbike offers support. Just like renting a car in the US, each prospective renter must sign a rental contract, laying out the terms of the agreement and cost. Rental prices are set at:

Daily (24 hours): 1,000 Tanzanian Shillings (TSH) (~$0.41 US)
Weekly: 5,000 TSH (~$2.04 US)
Monthly: 15,000 TSH (~$6.12 US)

The contract is taken to a village leader to sign as well, which helps denote it as official. In Tanzania, there is a strong sense of sharing and community, and in the past, apparently many renters viewed this as more of a "community business" rather than a private enterprise, and were more apt to return bikes late and balk at paying fees for extended rentals. Having the contract officially recognized mitigates this somewhat (though not completely).

Donors may wonder: why offer charitable support to a private enterprise? It's a fair question, but one that gets to the heart of the debate over how best to help address needs throughout the world. As a public servant, I certainly see and understand a role for the public sector in setting the rules and providing services that enable society to function. However, I also recognize the essential need for private enterprise to be able to identify and creatively respond to local needs.

What is the most effective way to sustainably address needs (in this case, for better general transportation) in areas such as this? Globalbike could just give out bikes to individuals, but to whom do they give them and what happens after they do? In an area with a strong expectation of sharing, their research has found that bike owners may be expected to lend their bike for others to use (particularly if it was given out for free), which could be seen as stretching a resource further on the one hand, but may also mean that an "owner" doesn't have it available when they need it. Also, when the inevitable maintenance is required, borrowers may not feel obligated to pitch in to pay for repairs, and the owner may not be able to bear those costs or have a convenient place to get repairs. As has been amply documented with so many well-intentioned charitable projects in Africa and elsewhere, a "tragedy of the commons" can develop where the resource is exhausted and ultimately falls into disrepair and disuse because community factors and long-term sustainability weren't factored in to designing the project.

Globalbike has tried to avoid this failure of charity by leveraging partnerships with local groups to identify their own needs as well as solutions that can ultimately become self-sustaining. There is a charitable role, yes, but the most effective end of charity should be to create conditions such that it is eventually no longer needed. Plenty of aid is provided to the private sector anywhere in the world through various means (such as the pandemic relief funding the Treasury Department distributed in the US, amounting to trillions of dollars given to businesses and individuals, which work I had some personal involvement in), however as with the pandemic relief funds, the goal is ideally to enable the private sector to survive conditions that may have otherwise led to their failure in the short term despite solvency in the long term.

In an area with fewer resources like these rural villages in Tanzania, private charity can help bring resources that builds up the structure of private enterprise for the long term. While the women's cooperatives own and run the businesses, Globalbike continues to offer support and advisory services. Tuja explained how she visits the shop weekly to review their financial accounts, their maintenance records and gather orders for spare parts, which Globalbike facilitates sourcing from World Bicycle Relief's warehouses in Kenya and providing at-cost to the bike shops.

Like any business, there are ups and downs and the pandemic has had negative impacts on the local economy, which in turn has affected Enaboishu. They have lost some renters who can't afford them anymore due to reduced incomes. Like elsewhere in the world, inflation also eats away at profits, though they haven't yet felt able to raise costs due to the local economic conditions. They are figuring out how to adapt, including by opening a satellite location in another village where the economy and demand for bikes has remained stronger (and which we will be visiting another day).

At the end of our visit, we were also shown the water spigot that Enaboishu installed outside the bike shop as another resource for the community. We then got to try out carrying buckets of water - as most everyone here does every day. The kids and Cherry all took a turn, including carrying it on their heads (as is the custom here) to a nearby member's home. They then generously invited us to see the inside of the home. The mud hut was very basic, with two couches in a living room plus a large container for water, a mattress for the parents and a dresser to hold clothes in the adjoining bedroom, plus a third room we didn't get to see, which may have been another bedroom.

Outside the house.

View of the Enaboishu bike shop.

At the end of our visit, the women sang us a song, which of course was a highlight for me as a singer. While I have no clue what they said, there is something so joyous about people singing together. One person started and immediately everyone else joined in, singing and clapping. It was yet more evidence of a shared community connection and culture, which you don't have to be a singer to appreciate. (Though of course, as a singer, I wish that I could get away with similar communal outbreaks into song in more settings...)

Some of the women had made various items of jewelry, which they offered for sale before we left. We couldn't resist getting a few items, of course. Cherry would have loved to get the cloth, but couldn't justify it, as it'd be hard to find enough proper opportunities to wear it. Though I fully expect before we leave Tanzania we'll be carting home some other yardages of fabric...

Kids are always excited to see other kids around their size, and they all wanted to shake Niels Marcel's hand. It was adorable! It maybe had something to do with our guide Ema having said he was a biking superstar (given that he was leading the fastest pedaler in our group, nearly always leading the pack). Or maybe because he's just a pretty great kid. In whatever case, as the youngest of our three, Niels isn't as accustomed to being in the spotlight, so it was interesting to see him navigate all the attention.